Judge Approves Legal Fees For Inmate's 3 Attorneys

November 30, 1985|by DICK COWEN, The Morning Call

U.S. District Court Judge Edward Cahn has approved legal fees of $32,486 for three Allentown attorneys who represented a former Berks County Prison inmate in a successful civil rights case over a homosexual rape.

Those fees will come from the Berks County treasury, which has already provided a $25,000 jury award to the inmate himself.

And there is still a matter of $4,032 in court costs for the inmate's side of the case, which will also fall to the county treasury. That has to be processed by the clerk's office in federal court, according to Cahn.

That puts the tab at $61,500 to the county for a rape in the summer of 1983 of a 20-year-old first offense prisoner on his first morning in jail by a fellow inmate with a longtime history of violence.

It was the practice of the prison then to put new prisoners in the same cellblock with problem inmates.

The inmate sued the Berks County Prison Board and Warden George Wagner.

The three attorneys for the inmate had asked $48,427 in legal fees in their petition to Cahn.

But Kevin Fogerty, one of the three, commented on Cahn's ruling, "It seems tobe a very fair and reasonable outcome."

Fogerty and Conrad handled the trial before Cahn in the summer of 1984 and the pre-trial and post-trial actions that for the most part were generated by the defendants.

They asked for $27,220 and $11,035 respectively for their work based on hourly rates of $70 in 1983 and $75 in 1984 and 1985.

For Traub, a senior partner where Fogerty is an associate, they sought $486 for his consulting work.

That made for a total of $38,742. Then, they reasoned that figure should be multiplied by 1.25 because the case involved more than average difficulty.

In his ruling, Cahn accepted the hours they submitted and noted the defendants haven't challenged those.

But as far as that 1.25 multiplier sought by Fogerty and Conrad, Cahn said he didn't believe it was warranted in this case. Further, he trimmed Fogerty's hourly rate by $5 and Conrad's by $10 because of their relative lack of trial experience and rather recent admission to the bar.

"I recognize that the attorneys' fees in this case exceed the verdict," Cahn wrote. "However, I have personal knowledge that the facts set forth in the affidavits of plaintiff's attorneys are correct.

"Furthermore, there was a considerable contingency risk on behalf of plaintiff's attorneys because of the difficulties inherent in trying prisoner cases to a jury."

The attorneys would have been entitled to nothing if the inmate had lost.

"The case was defended aggressively by counsel for the defendants, including post-trial motions and an appeal to the Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit," Cahn added.